Syracuse, NY -- Cody Catalina spent a year and a half trying to get back onto the football field for Syracuse University.

The quarterback-turned-tight end spent all of 2010 trying to rehabilitate his right knee and overcome nerve damage in that leg from a severe injury he suffered in a November 2009 game at Pittsburgh.

Catalina came to all of the SU practices, and he spent time with Orange coaches and tight ends, helping out wherever he could. He took an interest in helping other players learn techniques or deal with adversity on the practice field or during games.

Several weeks ago, the 22-year-old redshirt senior had to give up his dream of playing again at SU. He was declared medically ineligible by team physician Dr. Irving Raphael.

“Knee-wise, I’m fine,” said the native of Ruffs Dale, Pa., about 25 miles from the city where he played his final game. “The nerve is regenerating, but hasn’t come back enough to compete.”

But his work with other SU players kindled another passion within Catalina – who now hopes to become a football coach.

“Someone once told me, if you miss the (first) bus, the next one probably has a better seat,” Catalina said Tuesday after an SU spring practice session.

So Catalina will continue to work with Orange tight ends while he tries to finish his coursework and graduate from SU.

“As long as I can stick around, I’d love to get into coaching – whether it would happen here or somewhere else. It’s something I see in the near future,” he said.

Frank Ordonez / The Post StandardSyracuse's Cody Catalina avoids Northwestern's Quentin Davie during the 2009 season at the Carrier Dome.

SU head coach Doug Marrone said Catalina has been helpful enough that there might be a graduate assistantship for him this fall.

“We’re hoping to see where we can go with a graduate assistant’s job, and we’re looking to do everything we can to support Cody,” he said.

While it was painful having to watch from the sidelines last season and this spring, Catalina said he came to realize something that fuels his coaching interest.

“It’s almost like you start to realize how your parents feel, and how your dad feels, when he sees you start to play and you move on through high school and college. It kind of came to me a little quicker,” he said.

“As hard as it was for me not to play, I live through the guys who are playing,” he said, naming Jose Cruz, who started at tight end last season, and current Orange tight ends Nick Provo, Tom Trendowski and David Stevens. “The more they played, and the better they played, the better I felt.”

Catalina hopes that soon, those teammates can help him turn from one career cut short by injury and launch a new one.

“I’m just running with what I have here, just trying to get into coaching,” he said. “And hopefully win a Big East championship in the near future.”